Michelle Obama: School Lunch Menu Shouldn't Be Up to Kids

Michelle Obama says it's the job of parents and schools to make sure children eat healthy meals.

The Hill reports that the first lady hit back at critics of her healthy eating initiative, saying parents and educators would not be responsible if they allowed students to choose to eat burgers and pizza all the time.

"If I let my kids dictate what we have for dinner every day, it would be French fries, chips, and candy, but we don't run our households like that, and we can't run our schools like that," Michelle Obama said, according to The Hill.

"Our job as adults is to make sure that our kids eat what they need, not what they want. What we need to do is lend a hand to the schools that are struggling, not roll back the standards and say, 'Oh, well. The kids don't like it, so let them eat cake.' We can't afford to do that."

Obama held an event at the White House recently with school nutritionists to rally supporters.

"It's so important for our schools to make the hard calls for our kids, because parents are struggling enough at home. So once you make that decision to set the rules, you don't want to be undermined when your kids go to school and have some sweet cereal for breakfast with chocolate milk followed by a doughnut and then a burger and fries for lunch," she said, The Hill reported. "That's why we're in the state that we're in right now, in regards to the epidemic of childhood obesity."

House Republicans are likely to vote on a bill this week that would "allow schools to waive the school lunch and breakfast standards championed by Obama for the next school year if they lost money on meal programs over a six-month period," ABC News reports.